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1 Kings 4:28

Barley also and straw for the horses and dromedaries brought they unto the place where the officers were, every man according to his charge.

Barley also, and straw for the horses and dromedaries,.... Or rather mules, by comparing the passage with 2 Chronicles 9:24; the particular kind of creatures meant is not agreed on; though all take them to be a swifter sort of creatures than horses; or the swifter of horses, as race horses or posts horses: barley was for their provender, that being the common food of horses in those times and countries, and in others, as Bochart {h} has shown from various writers; and in the Misnah {i} it is called the food of beasts; and Solomon is said to have every day his own horses two hundred thousand Neapolitan measures of called "tomboli" {k}; so the Roman soldiers, the horse were allowed a certain quantity of barley for their horses every morning, and sometimes they had money instead of it, which they therefore called "hordiarium" {l} and the "straw" was for the litter of them: these

brought they unto the place; where the officers were; not where the king was, as the Vulgate Latin version; where Solomon was, as the Arabic version, that is, in Jerusalem; nor

where the officers were; in their respective jurisdictions, as our version supplies it, which would be bringing them to themselves; but to the place where the beasts were, whether in Jerusalem, or in any, other parts of the kingdom:

every man according to his charge: which he was monthly to perform.


{h} Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 9. col. 158, 159. Vid. Homer. Iliad. 4. ver. 196. and Iliad. 8. ver. 560.
{i} Sotah, c. 2. sect. 1.
{k} Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 10. 2.
{l} Vid. Valtrinum de re Militar. Roman. l. 3. c. 15. p. 236.

 

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